Suggestion: more complex creature behavior and creature behavioral modification by player interaction

Right now (0.1.1.1) creature behavior, especially reaction to smacking and stunning, still feel very repetitive and pointless, not to mention unnatural.

Here’s what I propose: Give the creatures a certain pavlovian memory. After they’ve been stung a few times, they start flinching without being smacked and avoid the player for the time being. If they haven’t encountered the player for a day or two, their behavoir resets. To make it more natural, give the pattern a small but meaningful chance to spontaneously reset, so creatures never feel too “tamed”

This has several advantages:

• Creature combat becomes meaningful, instead of feeling like an endless threadmill
• The behavior of the creatures feels much more like natural animals and less like mindless robots
• The player naturally creates “safe zones” in areas he stays for a longer period, like around bases
• If the player hasn’t been to a base in a few days, he has to re-establish “who’s the boss”.

Further related ideas:

• Creatures like the wax moon who are now indifferent to the player now could exhibit a fleeing behavior and “get used” to the player’s presence unless the player smacks them - If one were to bind the presence of prey fish to the presence of wax moons (and other “swarm focus creatures”) - antisocial behavior of the player towards docile animals would gain negative consequences.
• Similar adjusting behaviors could be applied even to titan class creatures. Maybe a collector could “play” with the player instead of eating them outright (pushing them around, feeling them with their mouth tentacles, etc, if he’s become accustomed to their presence - or even enjoy playing with flares, and instead of attacking, klick its claws waiting for the player to toss a flare - and eat them if they don’t play along too often.